In this paper we are offered a reflection on the historical and present marginalization of music education. As Cathy Benedict says, "What of this marginalization and what of its possibilities? I would like to suggest in this paper that this marginalized status partly reflects our own complicity as we have historically allowed others to speak for…

Oivind Varkoy challenges music educators who start their educational work from well-defined learning outcomes and who then test and assess whether students have achieved these predefined ends. He argues that "ends-means-thinking," "assessment-thinking," and "some sort of market-philosophy" all relate to "instrumentalism" in which learners are…

Kirsten Fink-Jensen offers music educators new insights on lesson planning and engagement with students through careful observation and reflective interpretation of active student involvement in music. She suggests that the phenomenon of musical attunement, including facial expressions, gestures, language, and movements that are articulated…

In this article, the author, a member of the International Society for the Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME), shares his views on the future of the "philosophy of music education." According to him, the "philosophy of music education" can be and is, many different things. He argues that the ISPME should develop an open and accommodating, but…

In this article, the author talks about the International Society for Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME). The ISPME is creating and institutionalizing a forum that can nurture and critique ideas and practices and sustain the work of philosophical reflection in music education over the longer term. It has begun to build an international team of…

In recent years saving the music has become a favorite project of major corporations, especially as privatization of public schooling has gained momentum. Here, the author presents examples of these projects like the corporate-sponsored initiative "VH1 Save the Music" which claims helping flailing school music programs. Among other things, she…

Writing and speaking are essential means of understanding, studying, and sharing music in the Western art music tradition. The papers presented in this symposium were the outgrowth of authors' dialogue during the summer of 2004. Each of them worked independently, yet each of them was also aware of the direction, the themes, and the ways of the…

A reply to Lawrence Ferrara's Chapter 4 in R. Phelps, R. Sadoff, E. Warburton, and L. Ferrara, "A Guide to Research in Music Education," 5th Edition is presented. It it curious that Ferrara disagrees with Jack Heller and Edward J. P. O'Connor's view that "philosophy" is not "research," yet in the chapter headings in the book A Guide to Research in…

Two problem areas which both concern the question of music pedagogy as a field of theory and research are addressed in this paper. The first one concerns the question of the normative and prescriptive versus the descriptive and analytical aspects of music pedagogy. The second is about the theory of and the criteria for the selection of content in…

Since music education straddles theory and practice, the author's purpose is to sketch the strengths and weaknesses of four philosophical models of the relationship between theory and practice. She demonstrates that none of them suffices when taken alone; each has something to offer and its own detractions. She then concludes with four suggested…

In this paper, the author attempts to extend the paradigm approach into the philosophy of music education and to build upon this basis a model for structuring music education discourse. The author begins with an examination of Peter Abbs' account of paradigms and paradigm shifts in arts education. Then she turns to Kuhn's conception and to his…

The main intent of this article is to describe some opportunities for an education in aesthetics by referring to similarities between intensive experiences of music in the individual life and in the history of aesthetics. Here, the author discusses Romanticism through the writings of Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder. Among other things, she discusses…

In this article, the author begins her response by acknowledging that she is not a musicologist, music educator, or a philosopher of music education. She says that she is however, a philosopher of education and a devoted student of music, so she found Frede Nielsen's paper both intriguing and rewarding. It is intriguing because it positions the…

A reply to Frede V. Nielsen's, "Didactology as a Field of Theory and Research in Music Education" is presented. According to Nielsen, the principal question concerning Didaktik is What is the essential content in music education? The author of this article, however, argues that this is a philosophical (as well as a legal) issue concerning the aims…

In this article, the author, W. Ann Stokes, responds to Estelle Jorgensen's paper contrasting four different concepts of the relationship between theory and practice, and pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of each. Each approach introduces insights that the others have missed, but is not sufficient in itself to explain all the…